Methods to monitor contamination of workplaces with antineoplastic drugs have been developed and validated. Cyclophosphamide (CP) was used as a model compound as it is one of the most commonly used antineoplastic drugs. A wipe sampling method to detect contamination with CP at surfaces was developed. A personal air sampling method to sample gas and vapour on solid sorbent tubes and particles wi...

BACKGROUND Nosocomial infections are a serious problem in health care facilities. Bacteria can be transferred from patient to patient via contaminated reusable medical devices and equipment. METHODS An anesthesia machine and objects representative of smooth and ridged machine knobs were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus atrophaeus spores, and Clostridium sporogenes spores. The...

Perfluorooctanoate (PFO) is the anion of perfluorooctanoic acid. As the ammonium salt, PFO has been used for 50 years as a processing aid in the commercial production of perfluorinated and highly fluorinated polymers. To assess the effectiveness of industrial hygiene controls in processes involving PFO products and intermediates, a wipe test was developed and validated to determine quantitative...

Health risks posed by dermal contact with PCB-contaminated porous surfaces have not been directly demonstrated and are difficult to estimate indirectly. Surface contamination by organic compounds is commonly assessed by collecting wipe samples with hexane as the solvent. However, for porous surfaces, hexane wipe characterization is of limited direct use when estimating potential human exposure....

In this study cyclophosphamide was quantified after adapting a prior analytical method using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry after solid phase purification and derivatization with trifluoroacetic anhydride. The analyte was measured by analysis in wipe test from infusion bags, which may be contaminated by contact with the gloves used during preparation of the drugs. Surface of bag contamina...

OBJECTIVES The aim of the preset study was to evaluate the applicability of a closed system device to protect against occupational contamination and exposure to antineoplastic drugs in the work environment of a hospital. METHODS We compared the contamination by and exposure to cyclophosphamide (CPA) between a conventional mixing method and a mixing method using a closed system device. Wipe sa...

BACKGROUND Cleaning of environmental surfaces in hospitals is important for the control of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other hospital-acquired infections transmitted by the contact route. Guidance regarding the best approaches for cleaning, however, is limited. METHODS In this study, a mathematical model based on ordinary differential equations was constructed to st...

The mutagenicity of PCBs, Aroclor 1242 and Clophen A60 was studied in a mammalian cell assay using V79 Chinese hamster cells as target cells. The method was used as a direct assay without metabolizing cells and as a cell-mediated assay with 5000 R-irradiated rat fibroblasts as metabolizing cells. A wipe soot sample of a PCB fire was studied in the same assay, and the results showed no mutagenic...

Planetary surface exploration is an appealing application of wireless sensor networks that has been investigated in recent years by the space community, including the European Space Agency. The idea is to deploy a number of self-organizing sensor nodes forming a wireless networked architecture to provide a distributed instrument for the study and exploration of a planetary body. To explore this...